1939-45 airpower and professional historians

[FalkeEins]

....there is no controversy over Gisclon's book - and his 1,000 victories - his claims are just ridiculous ! And I must say you don't need to be a 'serious' historian to work that out...just check one date, 6 November 1939 (le combat des '9' contre '27') to see how he grossly inflates French victories..by a factor of two no less. Besides he can't even get his own score right - he maintains that he was an ace, although M. Lorant at the SHD (SHAA) only gives him four victories..

It is obvious that you don't like Gillet because he doesn't say what you want him to say - and it is pointless discussing the subject with you.. how did you put it in your last message - with no sense of irony - amateurs who think they know it all...? I know of no other translator who would add pages of text to a leading fighter pilot's memoir to balance the 'story'

As for Peter Cornwell's latest work - it seems to be based on the latest (French) research for claims from what I can tell - in other words, Gillet's ....that must be difficult for you...

Originally Posted by FalkeEins

....there is no controversy over Gisclon's book - and his 1,000 victories - his claims are just ridiculous ! (...) just check one date, 6 November 1939 (le combat des '9' contre '27') to see how he grossly inflates French victories..by a factor of two no less. Besides he can't even get his own score right - he maintains that he was an ace, although M. Lorant at the SHD (SHAA) only gives him four victories.

Obviously Mr. Anonymous FalkeEins (HawkOne) is a troll who is trying to destroy me again. Have you a name, you hero?

Here he is trolling again instead of contributing something constructive. I'll prove it now but after this I won't give him any reply for with such a charcter it will go on and on and on and on.

Firstly "Jean" Gisclon (actually Justin - I don't know why he felt like changing his first name, certainly not in order to hide behind it) was a very JUNIOR member of the 4th escadrille (12 pilots) of GC II/5 1939 and before : he was a sergent, which is the lowest NCO-rank, and he was, like many other pilots, a very young man. What he wrote about 30 years later no doubt was strongly influenced by his own impressions of the time, which possibly were not quite reliable. This is very common. The combat you mentioned, in France very famous (it was celebrated even in the mass media of the time), was fought by his own unit, GC II/5, but he didn't take part in this mission, which means that this time his CO Capitaine Reyné hadn't ordered him to taker part. In his first book he reported "ten victories, of which eight were certain".

Remember that Gisclon's book was published 1967 (41 years ago!), that it was some sort of a pioneer's work at the time and he didn't enjoy all the documents, knowledge and HINDSIGHT we now enjoy. At least HE was a fighter pilot and fought the powerful, very dangerous nazi enemy. It's easy to criticise others, hidden behind a pseudo. What outstanding historical work did you publish you nameless "Hawk"?

The fight which took place on November 6 was very vicious and involved 9 French fighters ("Curtiss") and alledgedly 27 Me 109 Ds but I never saw any clear indication of this number from the German side - I would like to; yes this is a question to all German readers. It could have been anything from 16 to 32 or more even though in theory 29 was possible too but not very likely because normally (except in the case of engine toruble etc.) they flew in 4s (Schwärme of 4). Gisclon wrote that the fighting "lasted for over 20 minutes", which is very long. Of course when the young French pilots came back they were extremely excited. There is no doubt that they had shot down, or hit, at least five 109s. In such circumstances it was very easy to shoot down the same E/A several times or to make many other errors resulting in overclaim. According to the very recently-published French book "Les Curtiss H-75 de l'Armée de l'Air", by Lionel Persyn, the unit - GC II/5 - filed official claims for 5 "victoires sûres" and 5 "victoires probables". Jochen Prien/Gerhard Stemmer/Peter Rodeike/Hans Ring mentioned four Me 109 D-1s "100 % destroyed", one "70 % destroyed" (considered destroyed) and three "damaged less than 10 %" (belly-landings in the countryside etc.). Four of the destroyed 109s fell on French territory, one (Uffz. Hennings) on German territory. This totals 8 but as we know Luftwaffe documents are not always entirely comprehensive and this would not be the first time that they would minimise their own losses, in particular after such a terrible licking (Göring summoned Hptmn Gentzen to his HQ to report on the same day!). This disaster had important consequences for this unit, JGr. 102. Even 5 destroyed and 3 heavily damaged, as compared to the French claims, filed by inexperienced French pilots (inexperienced in actual combat involving shooting in anger), is not really an enormous difference but I wouldn't be surprised at all if some day we discovered that 10 Me 109s were destroyed all right plus 5 damaged! In any case, even according to J. Prien et al, 8 were shot down including 5 which were destroyed. See Prien's volume N° 2 of his purple series, page 526. To be fair it has to be added that Lt Houzé, who brilliantly had led this mission in spite of a very unfavourable initial tactical situation (the German fighters being higher etc. and their pilots having won a lot of combat experience over Poland), had had half a dozen 109s constantly on his tail and he had to belly-land his fighter, riddled with bullets, on his own airfield at Toul. So the score reads at least 5 + 3 to 1. Two of the German flight leaders (Staffelkapitäne) were killed, two other pilots were taken prisoners by French troops. Uffz. Hennings made a belly-landing (70 % damage) on German territory and was badly wounded. Let us also remember that all involved pilots were aged about 20-28. Today you're almost considered a child a this age (which is mighty exaggerated)...

Only four victories were confirmed by French HQ with four "probables", which matches the German losses very exactly. What are you complaining about, you troll?


[qutote]It is obvious that you don't like Gillet because he doesn't say what you want him to say[/quote]

- You're right for once! What I want him to say is the truth - as far as it can be known - and at least publish no bullshit : the latter is fully possible, there is no excuse. Sadly he does the latter systematically, he seems to enjoy bullshit like others, and he, too, enjoys libelling and insulting those who do the job.

You have unmasked yourself as a troll. Don't expect any more replies from me.

[CJE]

What outstanding historical work did you publish you nameless "Hawk"?

And what about yours?

[Juha]

Grozibou
why this tirade against Gillet? To me it is good that he presented different numbers
that of “oficially confirmed by French HQ”, btw You had typo on officially.
that of Confirmed by SHD
and his own results.

On decimals, they are clearly products of converting fractions to decimal numbers. .29 = 2/7, .66 = 2/3, in fact it should be .67 and .787 is probably typo from .778 = 7/9.
When one sums up fractions, one gets rather odd fractions for ex 2/5 + 1/3 = 11/15 = .7333…

Juha

[Nick Beale]

So, to sum up ...

France by May 1940 had a numerically strong airforce which was being re-equipped, too late as it turned out, with a range of modern types which (we will never know for sure) may have proved superior in combat to those serving with other nations had they been available in time and experienced none of the teething troubles that tend to plague newly introduced military aircraft. When Germany attacked, the French armed forces (which, I believe, outnumbered the Germans?) were deployed in a manner which was unequal to the task of defeating the invader.

French air power was more effective than has generally been understood but could not change the outcome. Despite these successes the French Prime Minister was pleading with Britain to deploy more squadrons of Hurricanes to France, squadrons Grozibou implies were not actually needed.

By contrast the British air defence system in 1940, with all its imperfections, did the job it was built to do. France was put out of the war and partially occupied, Britain wasn't.

And by the way, I still think "The Most Dangerous Enemy" was excellent. (1) It wasn't about the Battle of France and (2) the remarks Grozibou quotes are probably a very good summation of what the British then believed had happened in the Battle of France. And it was what they thought that affected what they did.

[CJE]

To sum up:
We were the best and we lost to a mostly inferior Luftwaffe.
Things turn out weirdly sometimes...

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by CJE

To sum up:
We were the best and we lost to a mostly inferior Luftwaffe.
Things turn out weirdly sometimes...

But you must agree that the beating was not expected and it is hard to imagine, is not it? Something went completely wrong, but what was it?

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by Franek Grabowski

But you must agree that the beating was not expected and it is hard to imagine, is not it? Something went completely wrong, but what was it?

British Professor of History - and French speaker - Julian Jackson argues that it wasn't an inevitable outcome...however he also says the defeat had many strands ...the collapse of a political system, the breakdown of an alliance between two countries, and in its final stages, the complete disintegration of a society, following the collapse of morale ....

de Gaulle and Gaullism was about both drawing lessons from 1940 and pretending it never happened...

[Kutscha]

(the Luftwaffe introduced the far better MG 151 in a hurry, as early as possible but only around mid-1941 with the calibre of 20 mm not 15)

Where did you get this nonsense from? What cannon did the Bf109F-2 and F-3 have installed?

Originally Posted by CJE

To sum up:
We were the best and we lost to a mostly inferior Luftwaffe.
Things turn out weirdly sometimes...

- The Luftwaffe was not inferior. It was NUMERICALLY (not technically) vastly superior and this is an important factor already! At least in theory they could, for example, send up to 20 formations of 40 bombers each at the same time, or 40 formations of 20 bombers each (something like one Bombergruppe), in all directions and to all possible targets to puzzle and confuse the defenders and overwhelm the defence. In fact they often sent even smaller formations, like one single Bomberstaffel or even one section of three bombers. French fighters often reported how they (3 to 27 fighters) attacked German formations of 300 aircraft and more but this was not really often the case. German fighter pilots for their part reported that "in most cases the enemy had numerical superiority", or something of this kind.

Remember that by May and June 1940 the Do 17 and the He 111 H, both types being the by far most numerous German bombers, were clearly obsolescent (not the Ju 88) - too slow, feebly armed etc. - and that any Me 109 E-mark would have been by October.

In May and June 1940 the French did possess some of the very best aircraft in the world but, as I stressed many times (and many other authors too), unfortunately just a little too late. This really is nothing new! The excellent medium bomber LeO 451 (cannon-armed!), the excellent light bomber Breguet 691-693 (cannon-armed too) and the superlative fighter D.520 (of course it was cannon-armed) were actually engaged in significant numbers - several hundred each but of course not all at the same time in one single formation - as well as, a little later, the excellent American-made medium bombers Glenn-Martin 167F and Douglas DB-7. The flaw was only that their very high production came a little bit too late in spite of frenetic efforts to raise it as fast as possible (at last). If you understand German just look at Jochen Prien's (or P. Rodeike's, or G. Stemmer's, and Hans Ring's too) victory lists and you'll see that German fighters claimed hundreds of top-class French aircraft as well as Potez, Moranes, Curtisses and Blochs. Phoney W. Balthasar's I./JG 1 alone claimed no less than 15 (fifteen) LeO 451s in ONE SINGLE MISSION on June 6, 1940 including 3 by Balthasar, and all were confirmed (!) so I presume they did meet some in the sky. "Ghostriders in the skyyyyyy?" In any case these German super-fighters carried at least 500 rounds for each cannon...

Jacques Lecarme, LeO 451's test pilot and an excellent officer at war, has clearly explained in the review "Icare" what terrible tactics French HQ used to engage their precious LeOs in useless missions which brought almost nothing useful. These excellent medium-altitude medium bombers, devoid of any armour (or almost so?), were often sent on assault missions at tree-top level or below 3 000 m, where their engines (optimised for higher altitudes) didn't give a good power and they had virtually no chance of success with their unadapted bomb-sights, which were excellent at 4-6 000 m.

In the 2nd edition of Paul Martin's book, published by you, we can see, by the way, that such German victory figures are not possible. The real losses were heavy enough.

And yes, technically even better, formidable French aircraft were being produced already. By September nobody would have felt like laughing any more within the Luftwaffe, especially if French HQ had switched to reasonable, not idiotic, tactics.